A former federal judge denies supporting a nonprofit hate group linked to the Charlottesville, Va. violence, and this week released tax documents and copies of checks he wrote to a Christian homeschooling organization.

Judge Robert L. Echols, a prominent Nashville attorney, provided The Tennessean and other news organizations copies of checks showing he donated more than $4,000 to Heritage Covenant Schools. He says some of the funds were improperly routed to the Mary Noel Kershaw Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports neo-confederate causes and Heritage Covenant Schools.

Echols said didn't know what the Kershaw Foundation was until contacted last week by reporters, but he now despises it after learning of its affiliations. He said his donations to the homeschool organization were re-routed without his permission.The foundation's public tax filings list some of Echols’s donations, which prompted news reports about the contributions.

The founder and headmaster of the homeschool organization, the Rev. David O. Jones, was also the president of the foundation until Aug.16, when he resigned. Jones has acknowledged funneling donations made payable to the homeschool organization to the foundation. He said he mailed Echols a receipt on the foundation's letterhead, and recently provided a copy to The Tennessean.

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Protesters are arrested before members of the Ku Klux Klan arrive for a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 2017. The KKK is protesting the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, who oversaw Confederate forces in the US Civil War. The afternoon rally in this quiet university town has been authorized by officials in Virginia and stirred heated debate in America, where critics say the far right has been energized by Donald Trump's election to the presidency. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP/Getty Images

Protesters gather in Charlottesville prior to the KKK rally under heavy police presence. KKK members and supporters held a 30 minute rally in Charlottesville despite an overwhelming number of counter protesters. After a half hour of standing around, waving flags and being jeered at by protesters, Klansmen were escorted from the park. Reports said they initially went into the sheriff's office but later witnesses reported they left there and drove away. Crowds spilled onto 4th Street and were told to disperse. Brad Zinn, The News Leader via USA TODAY Network

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - JULY 08: A Black Lives Matter community forum takes place before a planned protest by the Ku Klux Klan on July 8, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The KKK is protesting the planned removal of a statue of General Lee in Charlottesville. (Photo by Chet Strange/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 775002080 ORIG FILE ID: 810810206 Chet Strange, Getty Images

A group of peace activists pray near a Confederate monument of Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson before a planned Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 2017.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP/Getty Images

Members of the Ku Klux Klan arrive for a rally, calling for the protection of Southern Confederate monuments, in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 2017 to protest the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, who oversaw Confederate forces in the US Civil War. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP/Getty Images

Protesters gather in Charlottesville to voice opposition to the Ku Klux Klan rally. KKK members and supporters held a 30 minute rally in Charlottesville despite an overwhelming number of counter protesters. After a half hour of standing around, waving flags and being jeered at by protesters, Klansmen were escorted from the park. Reports said they initially went into the sheriff's office but later witnesses reported they left there and drove away. Sarah Toy, USA TODAY

The homeschool organization's reading materials, available on its website, glorify the Confederacy. Echols said that he was unaware of the school's views, and – now that he has learned more – would not have donated to the school.

"I guess there’s a lot of folks that are trying to hang on to the old Southern ways, but I’m not aware of any of them," Echols said. "They must be appealing to those people that ... would like to rewind history, so there’s another South, and there’s a North. I’m totally against that."

Echols said he believes donations supported a Christian school

The receipt from the foundation thanks Echols for supporting its “educational efforts,” and it notes that the funds were “directed” toward the school group. Echols said he doesn’t remember receiving the document.

The Kershaw Foundation also funded self-defense training for the League of the South, which was involved in the Charlottesville clashes earlier this month. One woman was killed there when a car rammed into a group of counter protesters. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers both the foundation and the League neo-Confederate hate groups.

Echols said his donations were going to a "Christian school. It helped the students to pay for their tuition." Jones led a weekly Bible study group that Echols attended.

Jones asked members of the Bible group if they would support his for-profit home-school organization, which is not accredited and serves students by providing teaching materials and administrative support for their parents. Echols began donating in 2014, the checks show.

Jones said he would take the Bible study members' checks and sign some of them over to the foundation’s account. The donations mainly covered the homeschool organization overhead and some course materials, Jones said.

“We were funneling it through that foundation strictly for the purpose of legality, so there would be a bonafied tax deduction,” Jones said in an interview.

The Kershaw Foundation’s tax filings show Echols donated $2,950, while the six checks written to the school amount to $4,300. Jones couldn’t explain the discrepancy. According to IRS records, the foundation is no longer an active tax-exempt entity, but Jones said that's a mistake. Jones resigned from the foundation last week.

Although Jones said he instructed some Bible study members to write their checks to the foundation instead of the school, Jones also said he didn’t tell the members about the transfers to the foundation. All six of the checks Echols provided were written payable to the school.

The school promotes books glorifying the Confederacy

Heritage Covenant Schools promotes a history that glorifies the Confederacy. It recommends that parent-teachers should read books including “Myths of American Slavery,” “The South Was Right,” and “Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier,” according to the school website.

Donations from the Bible study group helped fund a course called “The History of the Southern People,” according to Jones and a tax filing. One textbook chapter provided to The Tennessean reads, “If slavery was the cause of Mr. Lincoln’s War, then Americans deserve to receive the award for historical stupidity.”

The late Jack Kershaw, who created the foundation and helped found the League, defended James Earl Ray when he sought to overturn his conviction for assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A sculptor, Kershaw also designed the statue of confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest on Interstate 65 in Nashville. Forrest was the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

In an interview this week, Jones said, “I feel that I am a Southerner, and all that entails. I am not looking for a resurrection of the Confederacy.… I am looking for an independent Christian Republic.”

He left the League of the South in 2015 because, Jones said, “It was becoming more militantly pro-white. I’ve got no problems being pro-white. But the language tended toward white supremacy and white militancy. And I’m not that.”

Echols, 76, said he "never Googled” the school or Jones. “It surprises me that I was so naive,” he said. “I knew very little, but I was convinced he was an honest Christian man teaching the word of God.”

Some of the members of the Bible study group were aware of Jones’s dealings with the League of the South, Jones said. From 2000 to 2015 Jones was chairman of the Tennessee chapter of the League of the South, according to a reference on the school website that was deleted this month. Echols has been a member of the all-male Bible group for about 30 years and Jones joined about 2007. Echols said he had no knowledge of Jones's involvement in the League of the South.

Echols “knew I was involved in politics,” said Jones, who couldn’t remember discussing with Echols his views on the South.

“I try to keep my political views completely separate from any Bible study,” said Jones who disputes the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate designation of the foundation. “Maybe they should have known, or would have known. But that’s all speculation on my part.”

Echols said the Bible study group didn’t discuss the foundation, the League, or separatist teachings. “We were really just concentrating on the Bible verses and the chapters,” he said.

Echols supported integration of Belle Meade County Club

Nominated by George H.W. Bush, Echols served as a United States district judge for the Middle District of Tennessee from 1992 until his retirement from the bench in 2010. He “has handled complex class actions and multiple district cases with national and international implications,” according to the website of Bass Berry & Sims, his law firm.

After being nominated for the federal bench in 1991, Echols resigned his membership of the Belle Meade Country Club, which had no black resident members. He was preparing for his Senate confirmation hearings.

"I wanted to be a judge, and I wanted them to vote for my approval," Echols told The Tennessean, according to a 2011 article. "I don't think the club is discriminatory, but you're still faced with the fact that there are no" black members.

Echols, who later rejoined Belle Meade Country Club, publicly supported the club’s integration and the membership of federal judge Waverly Crenshaw, who became its first resident black member in 2012.

Many southern private schools – and their donors – also have legacies of segregation. Some private schools historically funneled donations through nonprofit foundations because the schools themselves were unable to prove to the IRS that they were non-discriminatory, and that they qualified as tax exempt.

“In the South, it was a reaction to desegregation,” said Marc Owens, a partner at the Washington-D.C. based law firm Loeb & Loeb and former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division. “The foundations sprang up on the periphery to support segregationist academies.”

Even if donations are funneled through a foundation, as Jones said occurred with Heritage Covenant, a donor may not be eligible for a tax exemption, Owens said: “It doesn’t change the fact that the donor wrote the check to a taxable entity and it’s not a charitable contribution.”

Echols provided The Tennessean copies of some of his tax records. The deductions section of his 2014 tax return indicates he donated $17,194 to charities, but it does not include a list of those organizations. He provided a list which he said he submitted to his accountant showing donations of $1,100 to Heritage Covenant School. In 2015, Echols's tax form shows he took a standard deduction and did not itemize his contributions. Echols said he has an extension for his 2016 taxes, and does not yet have documents to show.